Lesson 5

Empathy

This lesson focuses on the difference between thoughts and emotions, and teaches you to know which you are experiencing.

Video Lesson

What is Empathy?

My Journal

Building Empathy

This exercise is about acknowledging thoughts and emotions in other people. When we feel that someone understands us, this can be a healing experience.

The opposite is also true: we are hurt when our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are ignored, misunderstood, or attacked.

This exercise will give you a chance to begin practicing empathy. It is a warm-up for empathizing with others’ emotions in real life.

In each of these stories, our brain character is in a situation where they would probably feel some emotion. Say aloud what you think the brain would be feeling as you look at each of these, and select the emotions from the grid below.

Birthday Party

Which emotion would the brain feel?

A Mess

Which emotion would the brain feel?

Ice Cream Disaster

Which emotion would the brain feel?

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My Journal

Building Empathy

This exercise provides an important opportunity to develop your sense of empathy even further by practicing with someone else. When you share with someone else like this, you experience a much more powerful sense of empathy than you did guessing how the brain character felt.

It is an extra-credit exercise that you can do when it is convenient for you and the person you ask to practice with. Practicing empathy with others is an important part of building this skill, so we encourage you to do this exercise this week.

This exercise requires three essential rules: respect, confidentiality, and kindness. It is important to remember to use respectful words, tone, and body language. Do not laugh at the other person’s memory.

For this exercise, pick someone you know well and trust, like a friend or family member. Find a place where you two can talk where you feel safe. Here are the instructions:

Part 1

First, ask the other person to tell you a story about a time when they experienced a moderate but not severe amount of joy, anger, sadness, or fear. Take 3-4 minutes for the story. While they tell the story, listen quietly.

Then, retell their story to them as if it happened to you. You can share what you believe the speaker may have been thinking and feeling during the story, but don’t try to solve problems or give advice. Simply retell what you have heard, saying what they felt as it happened.

When you’re done, ask them if you got it right.

Part 2

After that, share what emotions, thoughts, and sensations you experienced when you heard the other person’s story for the first time.

Then, have them repeat back to you what you just said, clarifying anything that didn’t make sense.

Part 3

After that, the other person shares what they felt when they heard their own story retold to them.

After this, tell them what you just heard.

Part 4

After all this back and forth, now the question is how you each see each other differently. Tell each other if you learned anything new about each other, and if you see each other differently in any way. Exchanges like this can help us know each other better, and support each other’s feelings.